Kyle Sasaoka [email protected] hawai'i kriol University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Department of Second Language Studies Toward a writing system for Hawaiʻi Creole 28 February 2019

Graphemes and Origins Introduction grAfimz An Orijenz

inchrodakshen Sound Borrowed Grapheme Ethnic Origin (Odo) Symbol Hawai‘i Creole (also known as Hawai‘i Creole English, i 이 Korean Hawaiʻi Pidgin, or simply just Pidgin among other names) is a i language that originated from a need for a mutually intelligible system of communication on the sugar plantations of Hawai‘i in e え Japanese e the 19th century. Currently, there are about 600,000 people who use Hawai‘i Creole either as a first (Simons & Fennig, 2018). a 阿 Chinese a Despite being officially recognized as a language by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2015, negative attitudes toward Hawai‘i Creole Chinese 阿 with æ 阿 added diacritic on A top remain. For example, locals often refer to Hawai‘i Creole as Methodology ‘broken English’ implying inferiority to standard English (Drager, aw o Vietnamese 2012; Sato, 1989; Yokota, 2008). Against the backdrop of these metadalaji O negative attitudes, writing and the emergence of a literary tradition in Hawai‘i Creole have been identified as crucial ways o ô Vietnamese Graphemes were borrowed and modified from writing o that validate the local identity and raise Hawai‘i Creole status and systems/orthographies associated with Chinese, Filipino prestige (Romaine, 2005). Thus far, however, local writing in u 우 Korean (Baybayin), Hawaiian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Thai, u Hawai‘i Creole has been done in an ad-hoc fashion without any Vietnamese, and Spanish (with the exception of two pictographic widely agreed upon orthography or spelling rules. Even with the graphemes k and w that were then used to represent r R English r advent of the Odo Orthography in the 1970s by Carol Odo, phonemes) to devise a phonemic writing system for Hawai‘i linguists (not locals) have been the primary users (Sakoda & long Creole. The writing system is called Hawaiʻi Pidgin (for now) 々 Japanese

L vowel Siegel, 2003). Furthermore, the resemblance of Hawai‘i Creole because locals more commonly know Hawaiʻi Creole as Hawaiʻi writing to standard English reify notions of being an inferior Pidgin or simply Pidgin. Graphemes were first handwritten, then t ㄷ Korean variety of standard English (Romaine, 2005). In order to address digitized and rendered into a typable font via IcoMoon (an app that t these orthographic issues related to Hawai‘i Creole, this project allows users to build and use their own icon packs). A modified Korean ㄷ with proposes a majority-non-romanized writing system which reflects d ㄷ added diacritic on form of the Odo Orthography served as the basis upon which d top the ethnic diversity in Hawai‘i. After all, Sebba (2009) states that Hawaiʻi Pidgin is mapped on to a keyboard so that it can be typed. Korean ㄷ with “[w]riting systems are also potent symbols for the languages they n ㄷ added diacritic on Thus far, the Hawaiʻi Pidgin font is compatible with Microsoft n bottom encode to the extent that, in the public mind, a language and its Word, Microsoft Publisher, and Adobe Acrobat. Hawaiian pictogram for ocean derived writing are often the same thing” (p. 39). water ʻkai’ k pictogram borrowing the first k sound ‘[k]ai Hawaiian pictogram for ocean derived water ‘kai’ with g pictogram added diacritic on g top, changing [k] to voiced sound [g]

h ㅎ Korean h

f 發 Chinese f

s ᜐ Filipino Baybayin s

Filipino Baybayin z ᜐ ᜐ with added diacritic on top z Samples of hand drawn graphemes to digitization using Sketch sh シ Japanese sh

Japanese シ with zh シ addeddiacritic on zh top

Thai ch ฉ ch

Thai ฉ with added

j ฉ diacritic on top j

p b Filipino Baybayin p Filipino Baybayin b b b with added diacritic on top b Filipino Baybayin Future m b b with added diacritic on bottom m fyucha ng ~ Portuguese ng

This ongoing project welcomes any feedback from locals l l Filipino Baybayin and outsiders alike. The goal is to allow Hawaiʻi Creole to be l used in literary form without the stigma that it’s just a form of https://dapidgindictionary.com/ y や Japanese broken English. In the next few months, teaching materials will y be developed and will focus first on mastering the sound to Chinese/Hawaiian. In Chinese 川 symbol correspondences, then steadily moving on to words, means river, which flows in it fresh short sentences, short passages, and short stories with water. The References w 川 Hawaiian word for comprehension exercises. Since the teaching of the writing w fresh water is ‘wai’ of which the first system will most likely not be carried out face-to-face in refrensez sound is borrowed [w]ai educational institutions, this project will rely heavily on Chinese/Hawaiian. 川 with diacritic on technological affordances such as websites and apps to teach Drager, K. (2012). Pidgin and Hawai‘i English: an overview. International v 川 top to turn [w] into those that share interest in reading/writing in/with Hawaiʻi Pidgin. Journal of Language, Translation and Intercultural Communication, 1(1), v [v] 61-73.

Romaine, S. (2005). Orthographic Practices in the Standardization of Pidgins D ら Japanese A separate project to develop a comprehensive Hawaiʻi and Creoles: Pidgin in Hawaii as Anti-Language and Anti-Standard. D Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 20(1), 101-140. Creole dictionary is also in the beginning stage. This dictionary Sakoda, K., & Siegel, J. (2003). Pidgin Grammar: an introduction to the th C Spanish is envisioned to be crowd-sourced and is currently compatible Creole English of Hawai'i. Bess Press. th with the Hawaiʻi Pidgin writing system. The purpose is to 1) Sato, Charlene J. (1989). Language Attitudes and Sociolinguistic Variation in Hawai'i. provide a not-yet-available comprehensive dictionary for Hawaiʻi Sebba, M. (2009). Sociolinguistic approaches to writing systems research. Spanish C with dh C diacritic on top Creole and 2) to make entries written in the Hawaiʻi Pidgin Writing Systems Research, 1(1), 35-49. dh writing system as a resource for reading/writing. Hopefully the Simons, G. F. & Fennig, C. D. (Eds.). (2018). Hawai‘i Pidgin. Retrieved from https://www.ethnologue.com/language/hwc Hawaiian ʻokina efforts in this project will be able to inform language revitalization Yokota, Thomas. (2008). The "Pidgin Problem": Attitudes about Hawai'i which is shown in the sound column to projects elsewhere. Creole. Educational Perspectives, 41, 22-2), p.22-29. ʻ ʻ the left